China: Future Customer or Competitor in Livestock Markets?

From Purdue Agricultural Economics Report - China’s future role in international agricultural trade continues to be a puzzle. Part of this puzzle, namely that related to grains, has received far more attention than has livestock trade, which has been relatively neglected. China is a net exporter of livestock products, although over the last two decades imports have been increasing faster than exports. Figure 1 shows the time path of net exports (exports – imports) of meat, essentially poultry meat and pork, presented as a fraction of total non-ruminant meat trade (exports – imports) from 1965 to 1997. Forecasts from 1997 to 2005 (discussed below) are also shown. The trend is clear. The decrease of net exports as a proportion of total trade reflects a steady deterioration of China’s comparative advantage in pork and poultry production. This begs a further question: Will China eventually become a net importer of livestock products?

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